Construction Of 700km Lagos-Calabar Coastal Highway Commence As FG Approves N1.07trn

One week after the Federal Executive Council (FEC) approved a contract worth N1.067trn for the construction of the first phase Lagos-Calabar Coastal highway, the federal government said it had begun the 700km construction.

Though the project was initially franchised on a public-private partnership, the paucity of funds on the contractor’s part made the Minister of Works David Umahi seek FEC approval to award the project

Umahi said the 47.47km dual carriageway has five lanes on each side and a train track in the middle. He added that the contractors began the project after the official handover of the first phase of the project to Hitech Construction Company Ltd.

The former Ebonyi State Governor explained that the highway forms part of the 700km road connecting nine states, with two spurs leading up north, noting that the facility would be constructed with concrete

This means that the coastal highway would be constructed using concrete technology and would start from Lagos state through the Lekki Deep Seaport, Ogun, Ondo, Delta, Bayelsa, Rivers, Akwa Ibom and ends at Cross Rivers state.

He said, “They have completed some filling of 1.3 kilometres from the day the project was awarded to them. It shows the speed they are going to deploy this project. Within a couple of weeks, we awarded the project to them, they mobilised a lot of dredging equipment, and you can see that they have recovered 1.3 kilometres of section one of the phase.

“These repairs are expected to cover not only the top of the bridge but also the under-bridge works.

“At the Third Mainland Bridge, we have three or four critical elements to be rehabilitated. The first one is the deck, and the deck is about 11 kilometres. That is a dual carriageway, including the ramps, and it has been done by CCECC. They have done very beautiful jobs, but we have not concluded.  Before the end of March, we’ll be concluding the asphalt milling and the asphalting.

“But that is not all our commitment there. We are installing the guardrails, we are replacing the lights with solar lights, we are going to put some decorative lights too, and then we are going to put CCTV cameras both on top and under the bridge to check insecurity and illegal mining of sand, which is causing scouring on the piles and the pipe bits.”